Playing around the house
Creating the headphone images for my last post has inspired me to spend a little bit more time in my studio. I'm enjoying the Jazz Fest tribute on WWOZ on those headphones as I write by the way. They sound as good as they look. Having a kid (hopefully) going to camp in a couple months, we purchased a really cool titanium camp spoon/fork combination. Before packing it for camp I thought it would make a good photograph.
As I started setting the studio up, I realized that almost everything I was utilizing was either rescued or, minimally, gifted at some point. And, of course, that means it qualifies for this little blog I created.
The spoon/fork combo is obviously new. The head of the tripod the camera is sitting upon is new but the tripod is certainly not. It, along with many of the light stands in my studio were rescued from the basement of a retired, and now deceased, photographer.
From the camera, lenses and lights down to the work table and even props, virtually everything used for almost all these images has been discarded, retired or minimally gifted to me by someone wanting to the stuff used. Even the chunk of wood the spoon sits upon was a piece of unsuitable wood left over from a load of free firewood this winter.
It makes me happy to create imagery using this stuff. The inspiration for this blog began with the realization that competent imagery can be created with gear that isn't brand new and shiny. I think it would be very difficult to make a legitimate argument that we don't live in an incredibly wasteful society. We are taught to devalue just about everything once a new, updated version of the same item becomes available. Camera equipment is no different.
As an educator I try to help my students understand that the best tools aren't worth much without the knowledge of how to use them. I also like to remind them that the item being discarded today was the latest, greatest not too terribly long ago.
I work in a camera store. I sell new a lot of new gear. I like cameras. I like camera equipment. I've got new shiny tools in my arsenal. And, at times, I use them for various reasons. But can competent images be created without spending a lot of money? Can the gear you currently own get you through or do you actually need that shiny new thing?
Those questions are almost impossible to answer without more specific details. But in many cases, the answer is a resounding yes. And, hopefully, I'll be able to demonstrate that through the images I'm creating using my less than perfect gear.
Since it's dandelion season I've been seeing a bunch of dandelion pictures. That's normal. And one of the common shots I've been seeing is sunlight shining through the dandelion. Inspired by that concept, I decided to create something similar in the studio. With my own twist of course...
I've had this piece of fiber optic cable that I've used for a variety of purposes in the past but today I found the perfect use for it. Using the cable I could direct the gelled light specifically into the back of the dandelion to produce the warm glow I was looking for.
I've also seen a lot of these super close ups of individual seeds both with and without water droplets. So I chose to create one of those too.
I don't know that there's any irony in the fact that attached to the 90D was a fabulous broken lens I'd rescued after it was dropped and became less than fully functional. Works well enough for me.
I feel that all of these images are competent images that many photographers would be happy to capture. Would being captured using newer, better functioning equipment have made them noticeably better? Or, perhaps a more important question might be "would anyone know, just by looking at them, that these images were captured with beat up, less than perfect, discarded equipment?"
You be the judge.
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